A Boston pastor who helped pass health care reform in Massachusetts encouraged Colorado activists Thursday to win over the state’s conservative-leaning clergy with the “moral argument” that everyone deserves health care.
“When you put that coalition together, no power in hell or heaven can hold back health care reform in this state,” said the Rev. Hurmon Hamilton with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization.
In Massachusetts, 500 ministers, imams and other clergy produced a theological document pronouncing health care a right, not a privilege, Hamilton said at a Colorado Voices for Coverage conference in Denver. Their unified force on health care — even while they were “deeply fractured” on the same-sex marriage issue — helped push major reform through the Massachusetts legislature, he said.
Hamilton acknowledged that achieving similar unity within the religious community in Colorado would prove difficult because views from clergy range from the far left to the far right.
Hamilton said reform advocates should gather ministers and people of faith from across the state who know someone who was denied health insurance or died because they lacked health care.
He also reminded Colorado groups, including the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and the Business Health Forum, that major reform in Massachusetts took 19 years of “starts and stops, victory and defeat.” It began in 1988 when the state legislature passed a mandate that employers provide health insurance or pay a penalty.
“Stay in the fight,” he said. “How bad do you want health care reform in this state? How bad do you want health care reform across this nation?”
Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com
